Businesses and enterprises employ a labor-based approach to projects and client requests. For example, given a client request or client job, the necessary labor within the enterprise is identified and assigned to that request. The ability to meet client demands at any given time is based upon having the correct amount and type of labor available. In addition, management of products and responses to client requests involves management of labor resources. This approach, however, does not provide for the most efficient and effective use of asset resources within a company. Assets may be underutilized and are often not adequately tracked and managed so that improvements in one asset are communicated to all users of that asset. In addition, there may be duplication of efforts among the various labor groups for example creating or duplicating assets that could be shared.
Although enterprises have not employed an overall, unified asset-based approach to meeting client demands, tools do exist for managing specific groups of assets within an enterprise. Systems are available to monitor a given class of assets within an enterprise for purpose of inventory control or accounting. These systems, however, are directed to a single type of resource and to a particular asset management need. For example, asset management systems are available for the management or tracking of hardware, e.g. laptop computers, within an enterprise. Other systems manage the physical plant, e.g. buildings, of an enterprise. Yet other systems manage software assets and provide repositories, libraries or tools that can be used in software development. Asset-based approaches to client problems and projects would require management of all assets within the enterprise. Systems and methods are needed that manage all assets within an enterprise including service or labor assets. This management should provide for rules governing the production and consumption of a wide variety of resources within an enterprise.